Volume I Part 3 (1/2)
_30th April, 1866._--Many ulcers burst forth on the camels; some seem old dhow bruises. They come back from pasture, bleeding in a way that no rubbing against a tree would account for. I am sorry to suspect foul play: the buffaloes and mules are badly used, but I cannot be always near to prevent it.
Bhang[8] is not smoked, but tobacco is: the people have no sheep or goats; only fowls, pigeons, and Muscovy ducks are seen. Honey is very cheap; a good large pot of about a gallon, with four fowls, was given for two yards of calico. Buffaloes again bitten by tsetse, and by another fly exactly like the house-fly, but having a straight hard proboscis instead of a soft one; other large flies make the blood run.
The tsetse does not disturb the buffaloes, but these others and the smaller flies do. The tsetse seem to like the camel best; from these they are gorged with blood--they do not seem to care for the mules and donkeys.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Carved Door, Zanzibar.]
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Dhow is the name given to the coasting vessel of East Africa and the Indian Ocean.
[4] The Commander of H.M.S. _Pioneer_ in 1861.
[5] Those who have read the accounts given by African travellers will remember that the bites inflicted by two or three of these small flies will visually lay the foundation of a sickness which destroys oxen, horses, and dogs in a few weeks.
[6] Dr. Livingstone was anxious to try camels and Indian buffaloes in a tsetse country to see the effect upon them.
[7] This refers to an attack made upon the boats of the _Pioneer_ when the Doctor was exploring the River Rovuma in 1861.
[8] A species of hemp.
CHAPTER II.
Effect of _Pioneer's_ former visit. The poodle Chitane. Result of tsetse bites. Death of camels and buffaloes. Disaffection of followers. Disputed right of ferry. Mazitu raids. An old friend.
Severe privations. The River Loendi. Sepoys mutiny. Dr. Roscher.
Desolation. Tattooing. Ornamental teeth. Singular custom. Death of the Na.s.sick boy, Richard. A sad reminiscence.
_1st May, 1866._--We now came along through a country comparatively free of wood, and we could move on without perpetual cutting and clearing. It is beautiful to get a good glimpse out on the surrounding scenery, though it still seems nearly all covered with great ma.s.ses of umbrageous foliage, mostly of a dark green colour, for nearly all of the individual trees possess dark glossy leaves like laurel. We pa.s.sed a gigantic specimen of the k.u.mbe, or gum-copal tree. k.u.mba means to dig. Changk.u.mbe, or things dug, is the name of the gum; the Arabs call it ”sandaruse.” Did the people give the name k.u.mbe to the tree after the value of the gum became known to them? The Malole, from the fine grained wood of which all the bows are made, had shed its fruit on the ground; it looks inviting to the eye--an oblong peach-looking thing, with a number of seeds inside, but it is eaten by maggots only.
When we came to Ntande's village, we found it enclosed in a strong stockade, from a fear of attack by Mabiha, who come across the river and steal their women when going to draw water: this is for the Ibo market. They offered to pull down their stockade and let us in if we would remain over-night, but we declined. Before reaching Ntande we pa.s.sed the ruins of two villages; the owners were the attacking party when we ascended the Rovuma in 1862. I have still the old sail, with four bullet-holes through it, made by the shots which they fired after we had given cloth and got a.s.surances of friends.h.i.+p. The father and son of this village were the two men seen by the second boat preparing to shoot; the fire of her crew struck the father on the chin and the son on the head. It may have been for the best that the English are thus known as people who can hit hard when unjustly attacked, as we on this occasion most certainly were: never was a murderous a.s.sault more unjustly made or less provoked. They had left their villages and gone up over the highlands away from the river to their ambush whilst their women came to look at us.
_2nd May, 1866._--Mountains again approach us, and we pa.s.s one which was noticed in our first ascent from its resemblance to a table mountain. It is 600 or 800 feet high, and called Liparu: the plateau now becomes mountainous, giving forth a perennial stream which comes down from its western base and forms a lagoon on the meadow-land that flanks the Rovuma. The trees which love these perpetual streams spread their roots all over the surface of the boggy banks, and make a firm surface, but at spots one may sink a yard deep. We had to fill up these deep ditches with branches and leaves, unload the animals, and lead them across. We spent the night on the banks of the Liparu,[9]
and then proceeded on our way.
_3rd May, 1866._--We rested in a Makoa village, the head of which was an old woman. The Makoa or Makoane are known by a half-moon figure tattooed on their foreheads or elsewhere. Our poodle dog Chitane chased the dogs of this village with unrelenting fury, his fierce looks inspired terror among the wretched pariah dogs of a yellow and white colour, and those looks were entirely owing to its being difficult to distinguish at which end his head or tail lay. He enjoyed the chase of the yelping curs immensely, but if one of them had turned he would have bolted the other way.
A motherly-looking woman came forward and offered me some meal; this was when we were in the act of departing: others had given food to the men and no return had been made. I told her to send it on by her husband, and I would purchase it, but it would have been better to have accepted it: some give merely out of kindly feeling and with no prospect of a return.
Many of the Makoa men have their faces thickly tattooed in double, raised lines of about half an inch in length. After the incisions are made charcoal is rubbed in and the flesh pressed out, so that all the cuts are raised above the level of the surface. It gives them rather a hideous look, and a good deal of that fierceness which our kings and chiefs of old put on whilst having their portraits taken.
_4th May, 1866._--The stream, embowered in perpetual shade and overspread with the roots of water-loving, broad-leaved trees, we found to be called Nkonya. The spot of our encampment was an island formed by a branch of it parting and re-entering it again: the owner had used it for rice.
The buffaloes were bitten again by tsetse on 2nd, and also to-day, from the bites of other flies (which look much more formidable than tsetse), blood of arterial colour flows down; this symptom I never saw before, but when we slaughtered an ox which had been tsetse bitten, we observed that the blood had the arterial hue. The cow has inflammation of one eye, and a swelling on the right lumbar portion of the pelvis: the grey buffalo has been sick, but this I attribute to unmerciful loading; for his back is hurt: the camels do not seem to feel the fly, though they get weaker from the horrid running sores upon them and hard work. There are no symptoms of tsetse in mules or donkeys, but one mule has had his shoulder sprained, and he cannot stoop to eat or drink.
We saw the last of the flanking range on the north. The country in front is plain, with a few detached granitic peaks shot up. The Makoa in large numbers live at the end of the range in a place called Nyuchi. At Nyamba, a village where we spent the night of the 5th, was a doctoress and rain-maker, who presented a large basket of soroko, or, as they call it in India, ”mung,” and a fowl. She is tall and well made, with fine limbs and feet, and was profusely tattooed all over; even her hips and b.u.t.tocks had their elaborate markings: no shame is felt in exposing these parts.
A good deal of salt is made by lixiviation of the soil and evaporating by fire. The head woman had a tame khanga tole or tufted guinea-fowl, with bluish instead of white spots.
In pa.s.sing along westwards after leaving the end of the range, we came first of all on sandstone hardened by fire; then ma.s.ses of granite, as if in that had been contained the igneous agency of partial metamorphosis; it had also lifted up the sandstone, so as to cause a dip to the east. Then the syenite or granite seemed as if it had been melted, for it was all in striae, which striae, as they do elsewhere, run east and west. With the change in geological structure we get a different vegetation. Instead of the laurel-leaved trees of various kinds, we have African ebonies, acacias, and mimosae: the gra.s.s is shorter and more spa.r.s.e, and we can move along without wood-cutting.